An estimated 30,893 Arizona families were served by State-administered home visiting programs during the State’s 2015 fiscal year (SFY2015). This is a 7.4% increase over the estimate of 28,776 families served for SFY2014. The Arizona Early Childhood Home Visiting Index increased to 30.4% for SFY2015, up from 27.0% for SFY 2014.

This study estimates that Arizona receives $1.87 in benefits for every $1 collectively invested in evidence-based early childhood home visitation programs. The analysis was implemented by the Seidman Research Institute, in association with the Morrison Institute for Public Policy, both at Arizona State University.

As in most states, home visiting in Arizona began as a patchwork of programs that grew independently of each other within each State agency. At present, the State’s home visiting system remains divided among the agencies, each program has its own administration and reporting requirements, and there is no central registry of home visiting data. For this reason, ADHS engaged the Morrison Institute for Public Policy in early 2014 to estimate the scope of the State’s home visiting system.

Workforce quality and availability has become the most important location factor determining a region’s economic competitiveness/business climate. The relative significance of the workforce has increased over time as the U.S. economy transitions from the 20th century’s manufacturing-dominated economy to an economy driven more by technology and innovation. Educational attainment is a key measure of workforce quality.

In the years following World War II, high-technology activities became a disproportionately large part of the Arizona economy, focused on the manufacturing of electronics and aerospace products. These high-tech activities were primary drivers of the Arizona economy from the 1950s into the 1980s, joined along the way by the manufacturing of instruments.